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Recent Posts
- Thinking About Switching From WordPress? What Should You Consider Before You Move?
- The Airtable Acquisition Raises a Bigger Question: Do You Really Own the Software Your Business Runs On?
- How to Use Google Search Console’s New Generative AI Data to Improve Your SEO
- How to Update the Same Website Content on Multiple Pages at Once
- Discovered vs. Crawled Not Indexed in Google Search Console: What’s the Difference and How to Fix Each
- The Small Business Guide to Auditing Google Ads and Website Costs
- Do Professional Writers Still Need SEO in the Age of AI?
- Search Engine First vs. People First Content: Why Generic FAQ Dumps Harm Your SEO
- Looking for a Website Builder Without AI? Which One Should You Choose?
- Keyword Cannibalization: How to Find and Fix the Pages Stealing Your Own Google Traffic
- Why Great Content Gets Stuck on Page 8 (And How to Fix It)
- Why MySQL FULLTEXT Search Returns 0 Results (And How to Fix It)
- The Reality of Domain Speculation on New TLD Launches: Is It Still Worth It?
- The Hidden Domain Name Lock-In: Which Registrars Restrict Nameservers?
- Paying $10,000 a Month for SEO? Here’s How to Tell If You’re Getting Your Money’s Worth
- Introducing New WordPress Magazine Layouts in UltimateWB 9 (With Early Access)
- How to Fix the WordPress “Critical Error” on the Widgets Page After a PHP Upgrade
- The Hidden Risk of SaaS Website Builders: Lessons from the Recent Wix Outage
Categories
Tag Archives: backlinks
Discovered vs. Crawled Not Indexed in Google Search Console: What’s the Difference and How to Fix Each
When you log into Google Search Console (GSC) to check your site’s coverage, it can be very frustrating to find your URLs shoved into the "Not Indexed" bucket. But pay close attention to the specific reason GSC provides.
Two of the most common - and easily confused - statuses are "Discovered - currently not indexed" and "Crawled - currently not indexed."
While they might sound like minor variations of the same problem, they point to two completely different stages in
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged backlinks, crawl budget, crawled - currently not indexed, crawler, currently not indexed, discovered - currently not indexed, discovered vs crawled, domain authority, Google Search Console, Googlebot, gsc, internal linking, internal links, seo, seo missteps, seo tips, sitemap, xml sitemap
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Looking for a Website Builder Without AI? Which One Should You Choose?
If you have spent any time recently searching for a way to build a website, you have probably noticed a pattern: almost every major platform is pushing “AI website generators” or “AI website builders.”
They promise you can type in a single prompt and have a complete, published website in thirty seconds. But as hundreds of creators, developers, and small business owners on Reddit and web design forums are pointing out, the reality is rarely that simple.
If you are
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Posted in AI, Compare Website Builders
Tagged ai costs, AI website builder, all-in-one website builder, backend, backlinks, bloat, brand consistency, brand identity, branding, clean code, colors, control, css, customizable, customization, easy website builder, fast website, flexibility, fonts, high-quality content, html, no ai, ownership, performance, php, Prompt-Based Web Design, saas, server access, subscription fees, third-party plugins, typography, user experience, website builder without ai
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Why Great Content Gets Stuck on Page 8 (And How to Fix It)
You’ve poured time and effort into building a clean website. Your product is superior to what’s on the market, your articles directly answer user questions, and yet when you search for your core target keywords, you're stuck on Page 7 or 8.
When you ask for help, most SEO agencies hand you a cookie-cutter retainer proposal: monthly blog posts you don't need, broad "site optimizations," or generic link-building packages that don't address your actual problem.
If your site is already
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged 301 redirects, authority, backlinks, bounce rates, crawl, domain authority, fast website, Google Search Console, high-quality content, indexed pages, internal linking, keyword cannibalization, long-tail keywords, mobile-friendly, pogo-sticking, search intent, search signals, seo, seo tips, site structure, target keywords, topical authority, trust signals, user experience, user satisfaction, website optimization
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Paying $10,000 a Month for SEO? Here’s How to Tell If You’re Getting Your Money’s Worth
SEO can be expensive.
It's not uncommon for businesses to pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to well over $10,000 per month for SEO services. Large companies in highly competitive industries often spend even more.
So is that money well spent?
Sometimes, absolutely.
Other times... not so much.
The difference usually isn't the price - it's whether the work being done actually moves the business forward.
A recent discussion on an online marketing forum caught our attention. An in-house
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged authority, backlinks, bloat, clean code, crawl errors, duplicate content, fast website, google analytics, Google Search Console, high-quality content, internal links, keyword tracking, mobile usability, mobile-friendly, page speed, search intent, search intent match, seo, seo packages, seo pricing, seo services, structured data, technical seo, third-party plugins, user experience
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The Danger of Premature Site Pruning
One of the biggest mistakes new website owners make is assuming that fewer pages automatically means higher quality.
They open Google Search Console, see warnings, discover that some SEO influencer recommends deleting "low-value" pages, and suddenly they're on a mission to clean house. Tag pages disappear. Archives vanish. They slap noindex tags across entire sections of their site.
The result is often the exact opposite of what they intended.
Instead of improving rankings, they erase the very signals that
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged 301 redirect, authority, backlinks, build authority, canonical tags, crawl paths, duplicate content, engagement, Google Search Console, Googlebot, internal links, long-tail traffic, low-value pages, noindex, search engine ranking, seo, site pruning, stability, topical authority, topical relevance, trust signals, user experience, visibility
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Why Your Domain Rating (DR) Is Still 0 After Building 100+ Backlinks
Imagine dedicating months to an initial SEO outreach campaign, securing over 100 backlinks, and eagerly opening a metric tool like Ahrefs or Semrush only to find a flatline: Domain Rating (DR): 0.
It is an incredibly frustrating scenario that leaves many new website owners convinced that their site is broken or that the system is rigged. But when a site accumulates a steady stream of links without shifting its baseline authority metrics, it is usually caught in a predictable
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged ahrefs, authority, backlinks, bloat, domain authority, domain rating, dr, fast website, indexed pages, logarithmic scale, no-follow, organic authority, performance, plugin bloat, search engine visibility, semrush, seo, trustworthiness, ugc, user experience, user-generated content
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Personal Website vs. Substack? Why You Need to Own Your Site
The debate over Substack versus a personal website is fundamentally about digital ownership. While platforms like Substack offer convenience, they leave writers vulnerable to the discretion and algorithmic shifts of a third party.
Building a brand on a platform you do not own is a strategic risk. Establishing a dedicated website is the only way to ensure true independence.
The Myth of Ownership on Third-Party Platforms
Substack makes it easy to start, but that ease comes at a cost. When
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Posted in Ask David!
Tagged authority, backlinks, brand strategy, branding, content ownership, custom domain, digital assets, digital independence, digital ownership, online presence, personal branding, personal website vs substack, professional blogging, scalability, search engine optimization, self-hosted, seo, substack, web development, web sovereignty, website builder
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Does Google still use PageRank to rate your website?
"Ask David" short answer: yes. While you can’t see it anymore, PageRank is still a "core" part of how Google determines which websites are trustworthy and important.
Related: What Makes a Simple Website Feel Trustworthy? (From Real User Experience, Not Theory)
However, the PageRank of today is very different from the simple "0 to 10" score people obsessed over in the early 2000s.
How PageRank Works in 2026
In the early days, PageRank was the primary way Google ranked
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Posted in Ask David!, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged ahref, Ahrefs Domain Rating, authority, backlinks, E-E-A-T, experience, expertise, google, google algorithm, google pagerank, google ranking, high value link, important, internal linking, Larry Page, link spam, low value link, moz, Moz Domain Authority, new york times, pagerank, reasonable surfer, seed set, stanford, trustworthy, useful, wikipedia
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Do I have to keep adding content for SEO?
"Ask David" Question: "I’ve launched my website and have been focusing on SEO. Do I have to keep adding new content constantly to maintain my search engine ranking and traffic?"
Quick Take:
No - you don’t have to publish new content constantly to maintain traffic. Updating your existing pages, optimizing technical SEO, and building quality backlinks can preserve or even grow your rankings. Fresh content helps, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle.
Detailed Answer:
1. Updating vs.
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Posted in Ask David!, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Content, Website Traffic
Tagged authority, backlinks, build backlinks, clear navigation, easy navigation, engagement, engagement signals, fresh content, high-quality content, keyword targeting, mobile optimization, mobile-friendly, performance, readability, responsive, responsive design, search engine optimization, seo, site speed, structured data, technical seo, user experience, website content
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Google Algorithm Penalties Explained: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How to Recover
Google doesn’t like surprises. Website owners, on the other hand, often get one they didn’t ask for: a sudden drop in traffic, rankings vanishing overnight, and pages that once dominated search results quietly disappearing.
In most cases, that shock traces back to Google algorithm penalties.
If you’ve ever wondered what Google actually penalizes, how algorithmic penalties differ from manual actions, or whether recovery is even possible, this guide breaks it all down - clearly, accurately, and
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Posted in AI, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Traffic
Tagged ai, AI content, AI-generated content, auto-generated content, backlink cleanup, backlink profile, backlinks, bounce rate, content depth, content quality, core web vitals, crawl, credibility, duplicate content, E-E-A-T, engagement, engagement signals, experience, expertise, fast-loading website, google algorithm, google algorithm penalties, Google algorithm update, google core updates, google panda, google penguin, Google rankings, Google Search Console, helpful content, high-quality content, keyword stuffing, layout shift, link spam, low-quality, mobile-friendly, page experience, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, search intent, search intent match, seo, seo guide, slow load times, slow website, spammy, thin content, thin pages, trust, user experience, ux signals, visibility, website optimization, website traffic
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